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<div class="section" id="module-plistlib">
<h1>14.6. <tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">plistlib</span></tt> — Generate and parse Mac OS X <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">.plist</span></tt> files<a class="headerlink" href="#module-plistlib" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h1>
<p class="versionchanged">
<span class="versionmodified">Changed in version 2.6: </span>This module was previously only available in the Mac-specific library, it is
now available for all platforms.</p>
<p id="index-497">This module provides an interface for reading and writing the “property list”
XML files used mainly by Mac OS X.</p>
<p>The property list (<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">.plist</span></tt>) file format is a simple XML pickle supporting
basic object types, like dictionaries, lists, numbers and strings. Usually the
top level object is a dictionary.</p>
<p>Values can be strings, integers, floats, booleans, tuples, lists, dictionaries
(but only with string keys), <a title="plistlib.Data" class="reference internal" href="#plistlib.Data"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">Data</span></tt></a> or <a title="datetime.datetime" class="reference external" href="datetime.html#datetime.datetime"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">datetime.datetime</span></tt></a>
objects. String values (including dictionary keys) may be unicode strings –
they will be written out as UTF-8.</p>
<p>The <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre"><data></span></tt> plist type is supported through the <a title="plistlib.Data" class="reference internal" href="#plistlib.Data"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">Data</span></tt></a> class. This is
a thin wrapper around a Python string. Use <a title="plistlib.Data" class="reference internal" href="#plistlib.Data"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">Data</span></tt></a> if your strings
contain control characters.</p>
<div class="admonition-see-also admonition seealso">
<p class="first admonition-title">See also</p>
<dl class="last docutils">
<dt><a class="reference external" href="http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man5/plist.5.html">PList manual page</a></dt>
<dd>Apple’s documentation of the file format.</dd>
</dl>
</div>
<p>This module defines the following functions:</p>
<dl class="function">
<dt id="plistlib.readPlist">
<tt class="descclassname">plistlib.</tt><tt class="descname">readPlist</tt><big>(</big><em>pathOrFile</em><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#plistlib.readPlist" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd><p>Read a plist file. <em>pathOrFile</em> may either be a file name or a (readable)
file object. Return the unpacked root object (which usually is a
dictionary).</p>
<p>The XML data is parsed using the Expat parser from <a title="An interface to the Expat non-validating XML parser." class="reference external" href="pyexpat.html#module-xml.parsers.expat"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">xml.parsers.expat</span></tt></a>
– see its documentation for possible exceptions on ill-formed XML.
Unknown elements will simply be ignored by the plist parser.</p>
</dd></dl>
<dl class="function">
<dt id="plistlib.writePlist">
<tt class="descclassname">plistlib.</tt><tt class="descname">writePlist</tt><big>(</big><em>rootObject</em>, <em>pathOrFile</em><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#plistlib.writePlist" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd><p>Write <em>rootObject</em> to a plist file. <em>pathOrFile</em> may either be a file name
or a (writable) file object.</p>
<p>A <a title="exceptions.TypeError" class="reference external" href="exceptions.html#exceptions.TypeError"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">TypeError</span></tt></a> will be raised if the object is of an unsupported type or
a container that contains objects of unsupported types.</p>
</dd></dl>
<dl class="function">
<dt id="plistlib.readPlistFromString">
<tt class="descclassname">plistlib.</tt><tt class="descname">readPlistFromString</tt><big>(</big><em>data</em><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#plistlib.readPlistFromString" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd>Read a plist from a string. Return the root object.</dd></dl>
<dl class="function">
<dt id="plistlib.writePlistToString">
<tt class="descclassname">plistlib.</tt><tt class="descname">writePlistToString</tt><big>(</big><em>rootObject</em><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#plistlib.writePlistToString" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd>Return <em>rootObject</em> as a plist-formatted string.</dd></dl>
<dl class="function">
<dt id="plistlib.readPlistFromResource">
<tt class="descclassname">plistlib.</tt><tt class="descname">readPlistFromResource</tt><big>(</big><em>path</em><span class="optional">[</span>, <em>restype='plst'</em><span class="optional">[</span>, <em>resid=0</em><span class="optional">]</span><span class="optional">]</span><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#plistlib.readPlistFromResource" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd><p>Read a plist from the resource with type <em>restype</em> from the resource fork of
<em>path</em>. Availability: Mac OS X.</p>
<div class="admonition note">
<p class="first admonition-title">Note</p>
<p class="last">In Python 3.x, this function has been removed.</p>
</div>
</dd></dl>
<dl class="function">
<dt id="plistlib.writePlistToResource">
<tt class="descclassname">plistlib.</tt><tt class="descname">writePlistToResource</tt><big>(</big><em>rootObject</em>, <em>path</em><span class="optional">[</span>, <em>restype='plst'</em><span class="optional">[</span>, <em>resid=0</em><span class="optional">]</span><span class="optional">]</span><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#plistlib.writePlistToResource" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd><p>Write <em>rootObject</em> as a resource with type <em>restype</em> to the resource fork of
<em>path</em>. Availability: Mac OS X.</p>
<div class="admonition note">
<p class="first admonition-title">Note</p>
<p class="last">In Python 3.x, this function has been removed.</p>
</div>
</dd></dl>
<p>The following class is available:</p>
<dl class="class">
<dt id="plistlib.Data">
<em class="property">class </em><tt class="descclassname">plistlib.</tt><tt class="descname">Data</tt><big>(</big><em>data</em><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#plistlib.Data" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd><p>Return a “data” wrapper object around the string <em>data</em>. This is used in
functions converting from/to plists to represent the <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre"><data></span></tt> type
available in plists.</p>
<p>It has one attribute, <tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">data</span></tt>, that can be used to retrieve the Python
string stored in it.</p>
</dd></dl>
<div class="section" id="examples">
<h2>14.6.1. Examples<a class="headerlink" href="#examples" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>Generating a plist:</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="n">pl</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nb">dict</span><span class="p">(</span>
<span class="n">aString</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"Doodah"</span><span class="p">,</span>
<span class="n">aList</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="s">"A"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s">"B"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">12</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">32.1</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">3</span><span class="p">]],</span>
<span class="n">aFloat</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="mf">0.1</span><span class="p">,</span>
<span class="n">anInt</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="mi">728</span><span class="p">,</span>
<span class="n">aDict</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="nb">dict</span><span class="p">(</span>
<span class="n">anotherString</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"<hello & hi there!>"</span><span class="p">,</span>
<span class="n">aUnicodeValue</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">u'M</span><span class="se">\xe4</span><span class="s">ssig, Ma</span><span class="se">\xdf</span><span class="s">'</span><span class="p">,</span>
<span class="n">aTrueValue</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="bp">True</span><span class="p">,</span>
<span class="n">aFalseValue</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="bp">False</span><span class="p">,</span>
<span class="p">),</span>
<span class="n">someData</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">Data</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">"<binary gunk>"</span><span class="p">),</span>
<span class="n">someMoreData</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">Data</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">"<lots of binary gunk>"</span> <span class="o">*</span> <span class="mi">10</span><span class="p">),</span>
<span class="n">aDate</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">datetime</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">datetime</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">fromtimestamp</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">time</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">mktime</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">time</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">gmtime</span><span class="p">())),</span>
<span class="p">)</span>
<span class="c"># unicode keys are possible, but a little awkward to use:</span>
<span class="n">pl</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="s">u'</span><span class="se">\xc5</span><span class="s">benraa'</span><span class="p">]</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="s">"That was a unicode key."</span>
<span class="n">writePlist</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">pl</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">fileName</span><span class="p">)</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>Parsing a plist:</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="n">pl</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">readPlist</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">pathOrFile</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="k">print</span> <span class="n">pl</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="s">"aKey"</span><span class="p">]</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
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<ul>
<li><a class="reference external" href="#">14.6. <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">plistlib</span></tt> — Generate and parse Mac OS X <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">.plist</span></tt> files</a><ul>
<li><a class="reference external" href="#examples">14.6.1. Examples</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h4>Previous topic</h4>
<p class="topless"><a href="xdrlib.html"
title="previous chapter">14.5. <tt class="docutils literal docutils literal"><span class="pre">xdrlib</span></tt> — Encode and decode XDR data</a></p>
<h4>Next topic</h4>
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